ON ST. WULFILAICUS, DEACON AND CONFESSOR
AT YVOIS IN THE DUCHY OF LUXEMBOURG.
Sixth Century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the Saint's name, fatherland, age, profession, cult, translation, and Acts.
Wulfilaicus, Deacon and Confessor, at Yvois in the duchy of Luxembourg (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
The territory of Trier was in the sixth century, among others of that time, fruitful of Saints, as Eberwin, abbot of St. Martin's at Trier, a writer of the tenth century, mentions, in the life of St. Magnericus, Bishop of the same place, which exists among us in manuscript and is to be published on the twenty-fifth of this month. His true name as it is here expressed. Illustrious in that region was, by a name not compound but simple, St. Wulfilaicus, who followed the arduous discipline of the Stylites, whose appellation, that it is one and simple, if no other reasons proved it, even the French expressions alone would have to be heard, among whom likewise by one word, though variously uttered, it is Valfroy, Valfroie, Walfroy, Walfraye, Ouflay, so that it is not at all to be doubted that those Benedictine writers err who, with Surius on the twenty-first of October, separate Wulf or Wolf and Vulf from Laicus, by that means wishing to hint that the proper name was Wulf or Wolf, etc.; but that the addition of Laicus should be attributed to state or condition, as if they should say that St. Wulfilaicus, endowed with no ecclesiastical order, led in the lay state an eremitical, nay, a lay-brother's life in the Benedictine Order. The opposite Surius ought to have learned from the very first line of the life published by himself, from St. Gregory of Tours, where the Historian of the Franks most expressly notes that he met with Wulfilaicus the Deacon, by whom he was led to his monastery. Not to waste words; let it be beyond controversy that the true name of the Saint is to be expressed not Wulf, Wolf, or Vulf, but Wulfilaicus; nor do they err less who have introduced Wulferliacus or Wulfiliacus, or any other nomenclature.
[2] The Saint's fatherland will be understood from St. Gregory of Tours below, from the cited place of the history, A Lombard, now laid to rest at Yvois. where he pronounces him not a Belgian, Frank, or Italian, but a Lombard, who, having gone out from his country for the veneration of St. Martin, and cultivated by the institutes of St. Aredius, abbot of Limoges, at last fixed his seat in the territory of Trier, where he chose the summit of a mountain, on which he might build to his holy patron Martin a basilica and monastery, a column being erected for himself to follow the footsteps of St. Simeon the Stylite of Antioch, famous at that time, as the life itself sufficiently explains. The aforesaid monastery was distant from the fort of Yvois, where now his sacred body rests and is venerated, about eight miles, or nearly three leagues. Further, Yvois, in French Ivoy, Yvoy, or Ivoi and Ivois, has itself too its various inflections. From Jupiter (Jove), as Bertels the historian of Luxembourg notes, the name is derived, which Richard Wassebourg, Archdeacon of Verdun, preferred to call Evasum; Antoninus, as he hints, Epoisum; others Eposium; others Epusum; endowed in the year 1662 with the title of a duchy under the new appellation of Carignan, in favor of the most Serene Eugène Maurice of Savoy, Count of Soissons, father of the present-day Prince Eugène, the most famous commander in all Europe, nay in all the world.
[3] He flourished in the year 585, and died not long after. The age of St. Wulfilaicus Surius wrongly referred to the year 510, much more rightly Brouwer in the Annals of Trier to the year 587, although in what year he died is uncertain, nor is the day more established on which at last he put off mortality. Le Cointe in his Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks places at the year 564 the elogium of Gregory of Tours concerning St. Wulfilaicus, I think, that by that means he may hint that about those times the Saint came to Trier, St. Aredius being left, of whom perhaps he supposes he had thus far been a disciple. Of the journey of the praised St. Gregory, with Felix, legate of King Gunthram, to Childebert King of Austrasia, staying at Koblenz, on whose occasion he came to the knowledge of St. Wulfilaicus, he treats excellently at the year 585, in which the thing happened, after our Saint had led a solitary life there for twenty and more years, whose death he attaches to the year 594, although he confesses that St. Gregory has no word about it, nor could he himself certainly draw it out from elsewhere; so that it is consequently his mere conjecture, to which nevertheless I willingly assent, inasmuch as St. Wulfilaicus, already then in the year 585, when Gregory of Tours met him, seems to have been of an age advanced enough that he probably did not prolong it beyond nine years, being all but consumed by labors and macerations of the flesh.
[4] In which the Benedictine writers erred. Le Cointe there observes that the memory of St. Wulfilaicus is venerated on the twelfth of the Kalends of November in the Benedictine Fasti. But to the Benedictine Order, he says, he is not ascribed with better right than St. Aredius, abbot of Limoges, whose disciple he was, Gregory of Tours being witness. Those Benedictine Fasti erred at any rate, not only in claiming St. Wulfilaicus for their Order, but also in the corruption of the name, and in the jumbled placing or place in which the Saint lived and died. Behold the words of Arnold Wion: In the territory of Tours (for Trier), St. Vulf, lay-brother, a man of most holy conversation. Dorgan with a longer phrase, St. Vulph, lay-brother, who, like Simeon Stylites, living most holily upon a column, was so burned by the icy rigor that the force of cold shook off the nails of his feet, and in his beard the water, bound with frost, hung after the manner of candles. Briefly Menard, no less confused than the others: In the territory of Tours, St. Vulf, lay-brother. Others I pass over; nor would it profit to heap here the long elogium of Bucelin: more prudent than all these, Mabillon in the Acts of the Benedictine Saints deservedly excluded St. Wulfilaicus from his Order, not granting him a place even among the Passed-Over or the spurious.
[5] For the sacred cult exhibited to St. Wulfilaicus stand the cited monastic Fasti, He is truly venerated, though he was unknown to the ancient Martyrologies. nor indeed can there be doubt of it, since the above-praised abbot Eberwin testifies that miracles wrought at his tomb soon procured him veneration, which, after the translation solemnly made in the year 979 by Egbert Bishop of Trier, has hitherto persevered perpetual at Yvois, however much all the ancient Martyrologies are silent about him, even the Usuardine, however augmented, and indeed that very Trier one of St. Paulinus concerning its proper Saints. There is in my keeping a manuscript Catalogue of the Saints of Trier, distributed into its months, where St. Wulfilaicus has no place, no more on the twenty-first of October than on this day, but with several others he is placed, in a manner in an appendix or outside the order, yet adorned equally with the others with the title of Saint; perhaps because the author of the Catalogue made it a scruple to ascribe to him a certain day, which he did not know. But whatever of this there be, a more recent and faithful witness is our Father Johann Gamans, writing from Luxembourg to Bolland on the twenty-fourth of January 1637, that his feast is celebrated in the diocese of Trier on the seventh of July. Saussay, reporting the Saint in the Gallican Martyrology, followed the Benedictine monastic writers cited above, both on the day the twenty-first of October, and in the other errors, which he did not hesitate to borrow from them. More rightly Castellanus in his Universal one, on this day: At Epusum, today Carignan, in the duchy of Luxembourg, St. Wulfilaicus the solitary, whose elogium St. Gregory of Tours wrote.
[6] Gamans added in the cited epistle that the cause of the present-day festivity
is this, Probably he died on 21 October, was translated on 7 July. that on the seventh of July he was translated from the mountain, the place of his dwelling, to Yvois, but that he died on the twenty-first of October, as the Benedictine Martyrology of Wion has. These very things the more recent French Legendist adopted, composing that diversity of days smoothly enough. For the rest, it is mere conjecture, confirmed by no sufficiently faithful author, by no witness, to which nevertheless I would not at all gainsay, since no more plausible reason of that doubled cult can be brought forward. The history of the translation Brouwer touches briefly in the cited Annals of Trier book 10, at the already said year 979, in these words: With equal veneration Egbert translated the sacred bones of the divine Deacon Wulfilaicus to Yvois from the neighboring mountain, where he increased the special veneration of all, in that, the soil around being moistened, a most copious rain being poured out, nevertheless so abstained from the holy relics, though in the open, that not even a drop fell upon the Saint's bier. These things the above-praised writer of the life of St. Magnericus, the abbot Eberwin, an eyewitness of this translation, explains a little more fully, from whom we shall cull those things which are lacking in the elogium of the Bishop of Tours, yet in such wise that neither thence can a certain day of death or translation be had.
[7] To the aforesaid Prelate St. Gregory it must be attributed [The Acts from St. Gregory of Tours, the translation from the life of St. Magnericus.] whatever concerning the deeds of St. Wulfilaicus flowed down to posterity; namely from his History of the Franks book 8 chapter 15, which we shall shortly take from the latest edition of Ruinart, not much solicitous about the variant readings, provided the narration of the matter be understood well enough. It the abbot Eberwin interpolated here and there, or rather amplified: but since he plainly confesses that he described the history of St. Gregory of Tours, we judged the source itself the purer. There will be given, as we said above, the entire life of St. Magnericus, on the day on which he is venerated, the twenty-fifth of July, when it will be free for the more curious to compare both. The things which St. Wulfilaicus is reported to have mentioned to St. Gregory concerning the miracles of St. Martin do not properly pertain here. Let the cited history be seen, in the aforesaid edition of Ruinart chapter 16. The Saint's death and translation, since they cannot be had from elsewhere, will be subjoined to the elogium of St. Gregory from the same life of St. Magnericus, as I have also already noted; a little more distinctly, I think, and more accurately, than Surius spoke of them, on the above-said twenty-first of October.
LIFE
From St. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks book 8, chapter 15.
Wulfilaicus, Deacon and Confessor, at Yvois in the duchy of Luxembourg (S.)
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
Long reluctant, he is compelled to explain Having set out therefore on our journey, we came to the fort of Eposium, and there, having met with Wulfilaicus the Deacon, and being led to his monastery, we were most kindly received. For this monastery is about eight miles from the aforesaid fort, placed on the summit of a mountain; on which mountain he built a great basilica, which he adorned with the relics of the blessed Martin and of the other Saints. But dwelling there, we began to ask of him that he would narrate to us something of the good of his conversion, or how he had come to the office of the clericate, because he was a Lombard by race. But he could not set it forth, wishing with all his intention to avoid vain glory. Whom I, adjuring by terrible oaths, having first promised that I would tell no one the things he related, began to ask that he would conceal nothing from me of those things which I inquired. And when he had long resisted, overcome at last as much by my prayers as by my entreaties, he uttered these things. When I was, he said, a little boy, having heard the name of the blessed Martin, not yet knowing whether he were a martyr or a confessor, or what good he had done in the world, or what region had deserved to receive his blessed limbs in a tomb, I already celebrated vigils in his honor, and, if anything of coin came between my hands, I gave alms.
[2] his piety toward St. Martin, and a notable miracle. And now advancing to a greater age, I was zealous to learn letters: from which I could write before I knew the order of the written letters. Then, being joined to the abbot Aredius, and instructed by him, I went to the basilica of the blessed Martin. And returning with him, he took up a little of the dust of the blessed sepulcher for a blessing. Which, placed in a little box, he hung on my neck: and when we had been carried to his monastery in the territory of Limoges, the box being received, that he might place it in his oratory, the dust so increased that it not only filled the whole box, but even gushed out outside among the joints, where it could find an opening. From this light of a miracle my mind was the more kindled to fix all my hope in his power. Then I sought the territory of the city of Trier, and on the mountain on which you now are, I built with my own labor the dwelling which you see.
[3] I found here, however, an image of Diana, which this unbelieving people worshiped as a god. Acting the Stylite on a column, he converts the idolaters, I also set up a column, on which I stood with great torment, without any support for my feet. And so, when the time of winter had come as usual, I was so burned by the icy rigor that the force of the frost often shook off the nails of my feet, and in my beard the water, bound with frost, hung after the manner of candles. For that region is said very often to endure a great winter. But when we anxiously asked what food or drink he had, or how he had overthrown the images of that mountain, he said: My drink and food were a little bread and vegetables, and a little water. But when a multitude of the neighboring villages began to flow together to me, I preached continually that Diana was nothing, that the images were nothing, and that the worship which seemed to be practiced by them was nothing: that even the very songs which they poured forth amid cups and luxuries were unworthy. But rather that it was worthy to spend a sacrifice of praise to Almighty God, who made heaven and earth. I also prayed often that, the image being destroyed, the Lord would deign to shake the people from this error.
[4] The Lord's mercy bent the rustic mind, so that it inclined its ear to the words of my mouth, the image of Diana being overthrown. namely that, the idols being left, it should follow the Lord. Then, some of them being called together, this immense image, which I could not break down by my own power, I afterward deserved to pluck up with their help: for I had already broken the rest of the little images, which had been easier. But when many came together to this statue of Diana, ropes being sent, they began to draw: but their labor could avail nothing. Then I hasten to the basilica, and, prostrate on the ground, I begged the divine mercy with tears, that, because human industry could not overthrow it, the divine power might destroy it. And going out after prayer, I came to the workmen, and, the rope being seized, when we began to draw at the first stroke, straightway the image fell to the earth, and, broken with iron mallets, I reduced it to dust.
[5] At that very hour, when I had come to take food, Blows inflicted by a demon, healed by the oil of St. Martin, my whole body from the crown to the sole of the foot was so filled with evil pustules, that a place which one finger might cover could not be found empty; and, having entered the basilica alone, I bared myself before the holy altar. For I had there a flask full of oil, which I had brought from the basilica of St. Martin: from which with my own hands I anointed all my limbs, and soon was laid to sleep. But being awakened about the middle of the night, when I rose to render the office, I found my whole body so sound, as if no ulcer had ever appeared upon me. Which wounds I knew were sent no otherwise than through the envy of the enemy. And because he himself, ever envious, tries to harm those who seek God; when the Bishops came, who ought rather to have exhorted me to this, that I should sagaciously carry out the begun work, they said to me: This is not a right way which thou followest, nor canst thou, obscure man, be compared to Simeon of Antioch, who sat upon a column. But neither does the position of the place suffer thee to endure this torment: come down rather, and dwell with the brethren whom thou hast gathered with thee.
[6] He obeys the Bishop, and deserts the overthrown column. At whose words, because not to obey Priests is reckoned a crime, I came down, I confess, and walked with them, and took food alike. But on a certain day, the Bishop provoking me, sent me farther off to a village, and sent workmen with shields and mallets and axes, and dashed down the column on which I was wont to stand. But coming on the morrow, I found all destroyed, and wept vehemently: but I could not raise up what they had destroyed, lest I should be called contrary to the commands of the Priests; and from this, as I now dwell, I am content to dwell with the brethren.
DEATH AND TRANSLATION
From the manuscript life of St. Magnericus, Bishop of Trier, by the author Eberwin, to be seen on the twenty-fifth of July.
Wulfilaicus, Deacon and Confessor, at Yvois in the duchy of Luxembourg (S.)
Preserved from a fire in his first tomb, Finding the column destroyed, he bore it grievously enough, but, using the better way, thereafter betook himself with the brethren, and, after these things building up many and inciting them to better things by his examples, he remained in holy conversation to the very end: who, daily advancing by increases of good works, and famous for many virtues, rested in peace, and was buried in the same place, in the church which he himself built; in which many miracles are reported to be frequently done at his memorial. For in our times (at the end of the tenth century), when that same place was neglected from antiquity, it happened through carelessness that on a certain day it suffered a fire; and when the fire consumed the church and everything round about, the sorrowful citizens began to be troubled about the relics of the blessed Man, because antiquity had left them, as though uncovered by a broken coffin; and behold, the fire being quieted, diligently looking, they find the bones of the holy Man untouched by this burning, and so unharmed, as if that place had suffered no fire. Fulfilled was that which the Psalmist says of the Saints: The Lord keeps all their bones, not one of them shall be broken.
[8] By a new miracle he is translated to Yvois. For this cause therefore, and especially because the place was solitary, and, as we said, neglected from antiquity, it seemed good to the lord venerable Egbert, Pontiff of Trier, that the bones of the holy Man should be translated to another place, namely to the fort mentioned above (Yvois), so that there the relics might be held with greater reverence and custody. Counsel therefore being taken, when they were being carried from that same place, the bishop and clergy or monks and other frequency of people being present, as they went, when they had now advanced beyond the river, a copious rain suddenly descended upon them; but that the Lord might show the merit of so great a Man, through all the space that was traversed from the aforesaid place to the fort, although the shower by no means ceased, upon the bier of the holy man not one drop of rain fell; so protected from that inundation, as he had been defended from the aforesaid injury of fire. And let these things said of so great a man suffice, which we have therefore placed in this history which we are writing, that of what sort in the times of this apostolic man (St. Magnericus), in his bishopric the servants
of God were, and how devoted and industrious he rendered himself toward them, we might know. In vain I sought one who might inform me of the present-day cult.